


Got A Boy In The War

by Bhelryss



Series: Personal Trope Bingo Board [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: Glen (Fire Emblem) - Freeform, M/M, Wingfic, and the dying is canon anyway?, anyway, as does knoll i think, as is ephraim, cormag's mom gets a cool backstory that is only ever hinted at, duessel gets a cameo, eirika is present at one point, ex-soldier mama bear ftw, i mean is it major character death if it's a minor canon character who does the dying, natasha and moulder get a mention, that's all v brief, valter shows up. he has no speaking parts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 10:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6048291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bhelryss/pseuds/Bhelryss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for personal bingo board: Wing-fic<br/>ship requested was Cormag/Artur<br/>for tumblr user pkmnvietcrystal</p><p>They fall together almost by accident, but it works.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Got A Boy In The War

**Author's Note:**

> "mrr" is this noise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bEnnMfdp-0

He’d always had them. Mother said he’d been born with them, after Cormag’s father had left them for Rausten’s forests. “I don’t want you to show them to anyone, baby.” She’d whispered quietly, tugging gently on the straps that held them down. “I want you safe.” Glen holds his hand when they walk to where the tutors will find them, and doesn’t let go. 

The first time he sees a dragon, all he sees are the wings. Great expanses of leather stretched taut over bones and muscle. He sees home, he sees family. He goes home to the farm with a spring in his step, holding Glen’s hand just a little less tight than normal. “Mama,” He calls, dancing through the door frame, “I’m going to be a dracoknight!” 

Glen watches, amused, “Me too, Mom. I won’t let Cormag hog the sky to himself!” Their mother scoops them both up into a strong-armed hug, years of lance-work apparent in the cords of muscle there. Her children giggle, and Glen protests just slightly. 

“Of course, my babies. You take to the sky, my dragon boys.” Holding her babies tight, she helps them with the basic forms of lance-play they were to learn. Several years later, Glen came home with his saddle, flushed with pride. 

“I have a mount. His name is Fenarin, Mom.” He said proudly, as Cormag  showed off his trainee’s whip with a little trepidation. “The whips are for show, Cor. You remember mine, right?” Cormag smiles shyly, nodding, and slowly lets his wings out again for the night.

Stretching them out after a day of binding feels like glory and scales-against-skin. If Glen gets sideswiped a bit when he turns, that’s just a bonus and the right of a younger brother. If it devolves into a good natured tussle, with more than a little bit of wings involved in hitting Glen’s face than necessary...well they’re family. Family’s allowed to tussle and roughhouse.

Years pass, their Mother attends Glen’s promotion ceremony to general, teasingly calls him “her sunny boy”. She squeezes Cormag’s hand proudly when Genarog chooses him, teases him about her little dragon boy flying with dragons. Glen goes off to fight bandits with Cormag in tow, brothers in arms and brothers themselves. It’s good, even though Cormag always feels stuffed into his shirts, can’t breathe as deeply as he likes.

* * *

War comes soon enough, wrecking the balance he’s struck between family and duty. Glen goes off after the Princess Eirika with Valter, and doesn’t come back. After...after, he tears off into the woods, Genarog flying behind him, and screams. Even with his wings bound, even as they strain against the straps, he screams. Genarog echoes him, for Fenarin was of Genarog’s generation and they’d been raised together too. 

And he lets himself be carried by the fire in his veins, calling for blood and vengeance. Justice is a secondary thought, mostly a backup plan in case the “throttle them and tear out their throat with my  _ teeth _ ” plan falls through. So maybe he’s not the most personable, when he catches up with the princess and her small army. 

He has much too much dragon blood in him to be anything other than hostile when he flies down on their camp.

His wings are tightly bound to his back, and even though his focus is there on the blue head next to the red-headed horseman, the flash of bright magic near his own head makes Genarog bank left suddenly. Snarling, he searches for the threat.

Another burst of magic, Anima this time. A mage and a monk, both intent on grounding him, even as a pegasus knight takes to the air. Genarog snarls, ready to meet the challenge, but even through red-tinted vision Cormag knows better. They land, and Cormag inhales harshly, hand on the saddle as they wait for the Princess to approach.

The talk doesn’t go well, and then it goes worse. Defecting to Renais, as much as he hates turning on his country, is the best option Cormag believes he has. They make camp in the foothills that night, and Cormag realizes that he hadn’t packed a tent in his rage-fueled departure.

“Hi! Um, I thought...Lute noticed you didn’t have much on your mount, and well...I brought you a tent from the quartermaster. I’m sorry I tried to knock you out of the sky, I don’t normally...Light magic is normally reserved for monsters - I’m babbling. Here’s your tent. If you need anything, that one’s mine.” And the monk pointed to the tent across from his own spot, before smiling and retreating.

Genarog snorted, from his covered spot underneath a tree several kilometers away, and Cormag had to agree. Once cozy inside his borrowed tent, wing tethers loosened slightly (but not enough, he’s not safe for them to be loosened ‘enough’), he sniffled into his hand. Glen...Fenarin...His family had been decimated in one fell swoop. Now that he’d defected, who knew what would happen to his mother. Valter and the Emperor...they’d cost him his brother, would they take his mother too? 

* * *

“Sir?” the monk began, and Cormag recognized him as the short one who brought him the tent. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but that’s...I would like to approach your wyvern. I’ve never seen one so close, or ever in person, really. So, maybe if he allows it, I’d like to pet him. Oh, and I’m Artur, by the way.” The monk fidgeted, fingers tangling in loose fabric. 

“Cormag, and that’s Genarog. If he starts to make any sort of noises, I’d back up quickish. When I was a raw recruit, he liked to snap and snarl at his caretakers. Even working with him on a daily basis, it took a while before he stopped trying to take off my foot, so you’ll just want to be careful. Teeth that sharp will take off your hand.”

Artur grimaced. “Maybe I shouldn’t pet him then…” He’d started approaching the wyvern, but had stopped as soon as Cormag mentioned teeth and a foul temper. “Does he...take well to strangers?” 

“Not really, but he hasn’t reached out to snap at you yet, so...why not. Go for it. He might actually like you.” For some reason, Artur didn’t seem very relieved, but he came back every day with his meat ration saved for the wyvern. Like clockwork, really. Dinner would be at about dusk, and Artur would show up once the sun was truly down with a plate of roast rabbit (or hog, or bear) saved away. 

Genarog just might like Artur better than Cormag, and wasn’t that just a kicker. Best he ignore it, since he wasn’t willing to split his portion of meat between the two of them (if they had to run from the Renais-Frelian forces, Genarog didn’t care if his meat had been cooked. Raw stuff still made Cormag sick, and if he was weak from hunger, they might not be able to flee unharmed). 

While claws scritch into the dirt in anticipation of Artur’s nightly appearance, Cormag stares into the fire with an empty mind. He notices Artur’s entrance into the carefully maintained space around the knight’s tent, but doesn’t track the monk with his eyes. Genarog mrrrs contentedly over his snack, and it’s gone in a flash. Artur murmurs quietly to the dragon for a while, and Cormag surreptitiously loosens his straps, just a tad.

He breathes easier, and Genarog’s mrrs continue on into the night.

* * *

They’re in another camp, within Grado’s forests. Cormag is a little uneasy, because he remembers tracking bandits through this wood next to his four-man team under Glen’s easy-going command. While they haven’t met any trouble, they’re deep enough into Grado for the lack to make each and every soldier twitchy. 

Dinner is meager this night, another day without any game and no towns to trade in. Genarog, still the alliance’s only dragon, is growing tetchy without any food. Cormag hasn’t felt safe enough to loosen his straps in days, and his mood is steadily dropping to match his mount’s with every ache and twinge.

“I know,” Cormag says, breaths shallow and eyes moving rapidly over the shadowed encampment. He places a hand on the dragon’s side, fingers running over and over the rough-edged scales. “This really sucks, Genarog.” A grumble from Cormag’s belly is overshadowed by the clearly agitated snarl that vibrates through thick scales into and down Cormag’s arm, thrumming in his chest the way thunder does at an altitude which only idiots fly at, straight into a storm.

Hissing, the draco knight retracts his hand like one burned, the other hand reaching over the top of his shoulder to massage around a joint in his right wing. The strap cutting across his chest, clasp warm against skin, feels like a stranglehold. He wants to loose his wings and stretch them until the sun sinks into forever. 

Cormag wants his bed, wants to hear his brother doing a surprise inspection of the poor bastard five bunks down, wants to know his mother will be meeting the two of them for lunch this coming weekend, when they have coinciding leave for the first time in nearly a year. Wants the feeling of coming home to his mother’s house on Glen’s father’s farm, seeing the scorch marks his overturned candle left on the oaken table’s surface, the nicks in his headboard above his bed, from a bored child and a self-sharpened knife. Looking at the etchings of his mother and his father, of Glen’s river-lost father and their mother, of Glen and Cormag and Fenarin’s head, back when Glen was newly mounted.

He’s homesick and hungry and tired and achy. 

Genarog’s irritated snap of his jaws, when Cormag loosens the cinch on the saddle, is just the icing on the cake. He stalks away towards his tent and a slightly looser harness, boots slapping angrily at the ground. Artur’s streak of dusk-muted blue and orange pauses him, just enough for the shorter to catch the knight.

“Sir Cormag,” Artur puffs out, a little short of breath. “Would Genarog like it, if I gave him a present? He’s just been so pleasant, and I would like to be better friends with him.” The hopeful smile on the monk’s face soothes the anger coiling in his breast, just a little. Artur is so earnest that the strange line of questioning unsettles Cormag from his newly entrenched ill-temper. 

“You got my Genarog a present.” 

“Well, yes. See,” and Artur fished out a necklace from within his robes, pulling the cord over his head and reaching out to put it in Cormag’s hand, “I thought he might enjoy this amulet. It’s made of star-stone. They can be hard to find, since they tend towards “tiny” in size, but they’re blessed.

“Many believe that those carrying a star stone hold the blessing of the gods in their hands, since the stones come from the heavens themselves.” Artur pulls gently on the cord, shifting the stone so that it catches the low light. Cormag blinks, and a small smile takes the place of his frown at how the pitted surface suddenly shines.

It is a thoughtful gift, Cormag thinks, running his thumb over the rock. Genarog will want it carried in his saddlebags for the rest of his life, the knight knows, and will admire it often. He...he might actually be a little jealous of the wyvern, because this is a precious and thoughtful gift, and anyone who might be inclined to so give him anything are dead, or out of his reach. 

“Isn’t this yours though?” Cormag says, even though he wants to pocket it, even though he knows Genarog would want it in his saddlebags the moment he saw the way the light played off the rock. “Won’t you need it?” Something this difficult to come across and this special, wouldn’t Artur miss it? “Genarog and I wouldn’t want you to give it up if you need it. It’s not sacred to  _ us _ .”  

Artur giggled, eyes scrunching near-closed by the force of his impulsive and genuine smile. “Sir Cormag, I pray every day. Before breakfast and before i go to sleep every night.” Smile relaxing, the monk reached out to curl Cormag’s fingers around the amulet, the touch gentle. “I don’t need an amulet to feel the gods’ blessings.” 

Meeting the monk’s smile with one of his own, just because the expression felt contagious, Cormag rolled his head and shoulder in the direction of the wyvern. “You should take it to him, you know? Put it in his saddlebags. He’s going to love it.” Cormag finished, a little wistfully, before he mentally shook himself and pushed the stone back at the other. 

“You think I should?” Artur asked, looking a little wide-eyed. “I’ve never touched his bags before, he won’t try to bite me? You warned me before…” And then the monk sucked his lower lip between his front teeth, all while both squinting thoughtfully in Genarog’s direction and with his shoulders climbing up to join his ears in a sort of defensive, possibly frightened gesture. 

Cormag is about to speak again when Artur’s shoulders retreat back to their normal positions, and he nods to himself. “Okay. The saddlebags, right, Sir Cormag? Just...any one bag?” The knight shrugs, and nods firmly. Any of them would do fine, probably, and as Genarog’s rider, they could always shuffle it around once Artur went back to his own lodgings, if it turned out it was in the wrong bag after all.

Arthur strides off, blue and white swishing around his ankles, and Cormag follows after him with a bemused smile. His mother would love Artur, Cormag thinks. The monk has a gentle touch, perfect for grouchy dragons or raging roosters. With Glen...well, his family could use a little gentleness.

Laughter, and an affronted yelp. “Sir Cormag,” Artur accuses, delightedly, “he licked me!” Turning around, Artur flapped around a dripping hand for emphasis and leveled a delighted and affronted look his way. “I wasn’t expecting this at all, is that quite normal? I was afraid for a moment he’d take my whole hand off, I remember you warning me!”

Genarog barked out a rumbling huff, and Cormag made a similar noise, both clearly amused. “It means he likes you, Artur.” he says through a smile. “He’s never done that to anyone besides me, not even once. Though…” It  _ had _ taken Genarog nearly two years before he’d stopped trying to surreptitiously take off Cormag’s hand and started licking his equally grumpy rider.

“Well, it means you’re getting along famously, as they say.”

Artur ducks his head, and toes the ground. “I’m glad he likes the amulet, Sir Cormag. Really.” 

With a snort, Cormag reaches out to nudge the monk with a fist, bumping against him gently. “He likes you more than the amulet, I promise.” Genarog mrrs in agreement, and the knight rolls his shoulders a little to ease the itch between his wings. “Don’t be so modest.”

“Really? Are you sure?” He peers at the wyvern from underneath his hair, and smiles gently. “Then you won’t mind if I come to see him again?”

“We’re already looking forward to it,” Cormag says easily, “the both of us.” The answering smile is bright enough that Cormag is still a little dazzled when the camp fires have burned to cinders and ash, and he goes to sleep with Artur’s happiness-creased face in his mind’s eye and a sense of fondness overshadowing the aching joints in his wings and the pinched feeling in his shoulders.

* * *

Grado Keep rises up on the skyline, above the trees and above the little houses he knows are there. General Selena’s death weighs on his aching, tired shoulders, much like it does on Prince Ephraim’s. He’s avoided the rest of the army since they left the cover of the forest, warring emotions making him just as volatile as his mount. Artur, he’d heard, had been holding rites for the downed Grado soldiers with Father Moulder, a Frelian priest, and Sister Natasha, one of Grado’s own. 

Their kindnesses were all that were keeping him sane. If he must turn his lance on his countrymen, if he must strike them down, at least their souls were cared for. Glen would have wanted that. Glen wouldn’t have wanted him to fight their countrymen at all, but Cormag is sure that Glen would understand.

That for what Valter did, for what Vigarde had allowed him to do....They needed to confront him for that. This wasn’t his king. His king didn’t send people out to die with no explanation. His king had sat two little boys down at his long table, and spoke to them like they weren’t covered in dirt and the sons of a long-retired enlisted-woman who hadn’t even risen to the rank of Sergeant before she’d left the army to start a family. 

He tightens Genarog’s cinch, rumbles nervously at the wyvern (and receives a gentle mrr in return), and keeps one hand on his lance. Tries his hardest not to remember gentle sunny days spent in that yard with the other trainees, or rainy weeknights in the barracks over there. Or bright laughter shared between two brothers, light armor stacked into that blind spot. 

Shaking himself, patting down his pockets (and feeling more settled after touching the stone in his pocket, because it’s a gift and he needs to come out of this alive and mostly whole to deliver it, and that’s  _ important _ ) Cormag settles into the saddle. He can’t, he can’t do this right now. Later. Genarog launches into the sky with a snarl that gives the mercenary to his left a start, and dragon and rider take the lead within wingbeats. (The castle had been rebuiltwith high ceilings for a previous king, Cormag remembers, one who had fallen in love with a draco knight and had refused to let knight and mount be parted for even a moment.)

Ephraim’s army floods in after him, and the fighting begins in earnest. 

And it’s over in hours. Ephraim limps back from the throne room, General Duessel dismounted and supporting him, while Cormag shakes an infantryman by his pauldrons, snarls and says “Down arms, damn it! Don’t make me shove my lance through your chestplate!” (While he tries not to think of the scared archer behind her captain, who’d sighted him down and sent arrows straight at Genarog’s weak points. While he tries not to think of the ones that hit home, her aim true enough that Cormag put them both on the ground rather than risk an arrow hitting home to send dragon and rider tumbling out of the air.)

God, he hates this.

They make camp inside the castle’s outer walls, for the night. Cormag has chosen a place out of immediate sightlines, and lets Genarog out of his harnesses. He picks his loosest shirt, and shucks his own, wings stretching out for a few blissful moments before being poorly concealed beneath cloth. 

Most of Genarog’s wounds had been superficial, easily tended to. But the arrow stuck in the saddlebags...While inspecting the bag for damage, pieces of rock fell into his palm. Cormag groaned after realizing what this meant, sending a distasteful look back over at his wing harness. “I have to talk to Artur. Gods damn it.” 

He was tired, he ached, he’d barely washed off the dirt and grime and sweat from his face and arms. He probably smelled like blood and body odor. He did not want to confront Artur like this with bad news. Ugh. He didn’t want to put his harness back on. 

Gods damn it.

Grumbling an excuse to Genarog, who snorts an indifference, Cormag straightens up and wills his wings to stay close to his back. It’s just Artur he’s going to see, none of the others. And it’s dark out now. He’ll be fine. Still, it takes a few false starts, shards forgotten “accidentally” and the heavy rock being not-quite in his pocket and falling out, before he leaves his bedroll and pack and harness behind. 

He flags Artur down from a fire, beckoning the monk into the shadows. “Hey,” Cormag starts, softly, “I think I owe you an apology.” When Artur starts to respond, in that momentary pause when the knight tries to gather his thoughts, Cormag raises a hand to halt him. (The cloth over his wings shifts, and his eyelashes flutter briefly because it  _ tickles _ .)

The other hand extends, and hand clenched around something. “The amulet shattered, I’m sorry. We, well...I thought we should return the shards. And, well. We wanted to repay you. Without that amulet being where it was, the arrow that shattered it would have killed Genarog, and me. So. Thank you, Artur.” 

Face warm, Cormag gestures with his full hand for Artur to take it. Star-stone shards tumble into the red-head’s hand, as does the heavy rock. “I’m so thankful it kept you safe, I’ll have to make prayers of thanks - Sir! Is this? Is this a wyvern stone?”

He shrugs in response, a single shoulder twitching briefly (ever conscious of the fact his wings are unbound). “Genarog had it. And I thought, since you knew about star-stones, you might be interested in it - when I saw it I thought you might - It’s for you. I would have given it to you before the battle, but - well. It’s yours.”

Artur made noises of protest, but the knight refused to take it back. Finally, Artur relented. “Thank you, Sir Cormag. This is a precious gift. I’ve...always dreamed of having one, but they were so rare I thought I would never even see a wyvern stone.” There’s a silence between them, but it’s not uncomfortable. “Do you have a dream, Sir?” Artur says, eyes half-lidded, hands turning the wyvern stone over and over in his hands.

Cormag watches those hands, slouched as he is so he can be face-to-face with the monk, and thinks of his last dream. The one he shared with Glen, of brother-generals, and glory and service. He straightens up, frowning. “I just want my country to be what it was. Peaceful, with a good ruler. I want to undo the damage this war’s done, if only a little.” 

Artur reaches out, rests a hand on Cormag’s arm, and smiles. “I’m sure that dream will come true. After all, we’re all working towards that end. And, and I’ll work as hard as I can to make sure you see that ideal become reality.”

Heart swelling, Cormag lays his hand over Artur’s, warmth spreading from the point of contact. “You’re a good man, Artur. If...when, we restore peace, I’d like it if you would come visit me. I’d like to show you a better side of Grado, and my mother…I’d like to introduce you to her.”

Artur’s smile grows, and his shoulders shrug up and down like he couldn’t be more pleased. “Sir -”

“I’m not done. See, I think Genarog might like to take you flying, when you come. And. I’d like it if you just called me Cormag. I think we’re good enough friends, you can drop the sir.”

The monk smiles so hard it must hurt, Cormag thinks. “I’m looking forward to it, Cormag. I’d love to see you, and Genarog, and Grado in better times.”

Cormag leaves the conversation with empty pockets but bursting with good feelings, emotional turmoil forgotten for a little while. Things are going to turn out okay, he assures himself. With people like Artur fighting alongside the General Obsidian and himself, and Knoll and Natasha as well...how could it not be fine, eventually?

* * *

They meet up with Prince Ephraim’s sister in the middle of the Jehannan desert. The sun is sweltering, and the heat shimmers above the sand in such a way that he has trouble aiming from above. At least he isn’t slowed by the way the stuff shifts around his feet, like the infantry and cavalry, Genarog launches them forward through the air completely unimpeded.

And, he thinks fondly, Artur seemed untroubled by the sand as well. The monk was making fast progress, side by side with the other Renais mage. Every few moments a bright flash of light would draw his eye away from pursuing another enemy, and he would smile to know that his friend was alright. 

Across the field was Valter, and Cormag fully intended to kill him. Regardless of anything else. This man had let his insanity run him, and had taken from Cormag his only brother. Whenever he spotted the Moonstone’s dragon, tail lashing about and wings disturbing the sand around it, Cormag’s vision turned red.

“There,” he snarled, nudging Genarog to face the plumes of sand billowing up into the dry air. “Valter!” He roars, dragon echoing him half a furious heartbeat later.  _ For Fenarin _ ,  _ for Glen _ , he thinks, before they launch themselves off a sand dune. This battle would be in the air, lances against lances. Claw against claw.

There is an archer nearby, but a flash of fire draws them away before Cormag’s tunnel vision can focus on the danger they present. With the singular archer out of the way, there is no one to stop Genarog’s fury-fueled beeline. The two dragons collide with a roar, Cormag’s lance jostled astray so it whips over Valter’s shoulder harmlessly.

Despite his insanity, Valter’s skill is unchanged. Despite the way their mounts are clawing at each other, the way they plummet towards the earth, his lance strikes true. A searing line of pain blooms dark over Cormag’s shoulder, underneath his armor, and Genarog and Valter’s wyvern break off their engagement. There is just enough distance between them that the only way to attack would be to throw a lance, and neither of them are willing to throw away a weapon.

For a brief moment the only noise is the sound of the wind whipping over scales, the sounds of battle around them carried away. Then Valter speaks, poisonous words carving wounds into his heart with every syllable. Twirling his lance, Cormag screams a challenge.  _ For Glen, for Fenarin _ . In a flurry of wingbeats, it’s over.

They don’t pause, Jehanna Hall has fallen, and they fear for Queen Ismaire. Cormag pauses, just to make sure his wounds won’t have him bleed to death, and follows closely behind Artur. His words are still scarce, blood thrumming with adrenalin, and his eyes dart from shadow to shadow, expecting soldiers, expecting more threats. 

They were too late. 

In the burned out husk of an outer courtyard, the healers set up tents, ready to tend to the wounded of the Renais armies and the survivors of Jehanna Hall’s sacking. Cormag slides a hand underneath his armor, to that first wound Valter inflicted, and hisses. His hand comes back stained, and he hisses again.

He needs bandages, maybe even stitches, Cormag realizes, and he swears. None of the healers know, his wings are his dearest kept secret. He swears again, and kicks a soot-stained stone. Ugh.

Thankfully his own pack, left behind with the caravan before the battle, has what he needs. Jaw clenched tight to ward against pained outcry, Cormag ducks into a secluded corner to start putting himself back together. Genarog lays out in the sun, close by, rumbling a warning when people pass by too closely. 

(Good dragon, best friend.)

There’s a scratch on his lower abdomen that’s already clotted, but when he passes over it with a damp cloth blood starts beading up again. Wrapping bandages around his waist to cover it properly takes up most of his single roll. Every movement seems to twinge the wound on his shoulder, and he exhales through his teeth for each new wave of pain.

At least, he thinks with his eyes screwed closed against the throbbing, his worst wound is easily stitched. He doesn’t need a healer. He doesn’t even need help stitching himself up (a blessing, and a curse. The last person to assist him with his wounds was Glen, and his heart aches to think about it). 

He shrugs out of his shirt, careful not to exacerbate the weeping wound. “Damn it”, he swears quietly, “need to get the harness off.” It’s not safe, but he has no choice. The sun’s still up, reflecting off his hair and making him uncomfortably warm. No one could possibly miss his wings, if they see him. 

But he can’t stitch himself up without it removed.

Rumbling nervously, he unbuckles it with one hand, easing the straps from around his chest and from off his shoulders. For the first time in a long time, he stretches his wings out into the sunlight. The way the desert sun shines off the tan leather and the gold scales of them is fascinating, like watching his reflection as he moves through lance forms. 

Even stretched out fully, with his arms held out fully extended to the side for measuring, his wingtips barely reach to his elbows. Myrrh, the manakete...even at twice her height, her wings are much larger than his own.  _ Probably _ , he thinks, _ it comes from being full dragon _ . But that doesn’t matter, he has to remember.

Each second he dallies, taking longer than necessary to stitch his wound, he risks discovery. Valter’s words, the poison he hadn’t bothered comprehending during their battle, start to sink in.  _ Oathbreaker _ , sings the threaded needle,  _ traitor _ ! Weak, pitiful, fool. 

Weak, pitiful, fool. Traitor. Oathbreaker. Weak, pitiful. Fool, oathbreaker. Traitor.  Weak. Pitiful oathbreaker, fool. Traitor! Fool, weak, traitor. Oath - 

“Cormag?” 

Startled, Cormag stabs himself in the wrong place with the needle, head jerking up to look straight at Artur. Hissing an exhale at the sting, focusing in horror at the knowledge that one of his wings just flared itself in his moment of surprise. Eyes wide, he stares at the monk, who stares back. Genarog rumbles behind Artur, still blocking the dragon knight from view, sounding inordinately pleased with himself.

Heart beating a million miles a minute, Cormag abandons the needle and scrambles to his feet, yanking on his shirt in the process (pulling out his new, half-finished stitches). The back of his shirt is strained across his shoulders, having missed being pulled over the tops of his wings and bunching up over where the appendages meet his shoulder blades. “Artur, I -” He pauses, finding he has no explanation, no plea for silence. Just despair and fear roiling in his gut. 

Tugging on the back of his shirt, despite knowing that it’s stuck, just causes his shoulder to sear. Just pulls his wings downwards in a way that is uncomfortable. Just draws attention to the yellow and tan rising up above the brown of his shirt. He wants his armor, wants his lance. Some sort of physical barrier he can hold between him and that wide-eyed stare of Artur’s.

“I - “ he has nothing to say, gods save him. He has nothing to say.

“Cormag,” Artur says softly, eyes still wide, “You’re bleeding.” He steps closer, hand reaching out, and Cormag steps back until his wings brush the wall, and then he’s frozen. “What are you doing, trying to put in your own stitches?” There are gentle hands tugging at the shirt, a cool touch along the edges of the bandages along his stomach, a frown when Artur focuses on his shoulder. 

“You should have told me,” he chastises, “I would have helped you.” Cormag meets Artur’s eyes, with silent disbelief written all over his face. “What, you thought something like this,” and he ran one finger down the leather of a wing, sending a shiver down the knight’s spine, “would have kept me from coming to aid you?

“Cormag, you know me.” Unspoken:  _ you know I would have come, no matter what _ . Without the tension his paralyzing fear gave him, Cormag practically sags back to a seated position. Artur follows him to the ground, pulling the half-donned shirt back off, and using steady hands to put in the stitches properly. Bandages are applied on top, loosely, just to help keep the sand away. 

Artur helps him re-don the harness, straps almost too loose for comfort, helps smooth the shirt over bandages and wings so it falls smoothly and doesn’t irritate his wounds. Grabs at his hand, and threads their fingers. “Let’s get you and Genarog settled in, okay?” 

Cormag breathes deeply, lets the sun warm his shoulders and focuses on the shy smile on Artur’s face. “Yeah. Okay, let’s do that.”


End file.
